Elgar

Philadelphia’s Wanamaker Organ: Power, Warmth, and Lyricism

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Last week, Macy’s announced that it is closing its Center City Philadelphia store in the iconic Wanamaker’s Building. Built between 1904 and 1911 during the ascendancy of Wanamaker’s department store, the magnificent Beaux-Arts structure was designed by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham. Flanked by majestic columns, and clad in polished marble, its soaring seven-story tall central atrium culminates in a Renaissance-style mosaic ceiling. For shoppers, this Grand Court functioned as a bustling indoor …

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Elgar’s “As Torrents in Summer”: Cambridge University Chamber Choir

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Scored for a cappella chorus, As Torrents in Summer is an excerpt from the epilogue of Sir Edward Elgar’s 1896 cantata, Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf, Op. 30.The text is an adaptation of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which tells the story of Olaf Tryggvason, the medieval king of Norway, who brought Christianity to the Scandinavian country. In As Torrents in Summer, the sustaining force of a far-off summer rainstorm, …

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Elgar’s “Cockaigne” (“In London Town”): Portrait of a Dynamic City

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In 1777, the polymath Samuel Johnson wrote, famously, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” Sir Edward Elgar’s 1901 overture Cockaigne (In London Town), Op. 40, is a glittering portrait of this dynamic city on the Thames. In medieval mythology, Cockaigne represented an imaginary utopia filled with endless physical comforts, idleness, and pleasure. In the early years of the …

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Josef Hassid: Three Historic Recordings

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A fiddler like Heifetz is born every 100 years; one like Hassid every 200 years. So said the great violinist, Fritz Kreisler, after attending an impromptu concert at the home of the noted Hungarian pedagogue, Carl Flesch. The “fiddler” was the Polish teenage virtuoso, Josef Hassid (1923-1950). Kreisler was so impressed with Hassid’s playing that he lent him a fine instrument made in 1860 by the French luthier, Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. Yet, Josef Hassid’s …

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Elgar’s Violin Concerto: Venturing into the Inner World

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Two worlds collide in the music of Sir Edward Elgar. Outwardly, there is heroism and swashbuckling adventure, tempered with a distinctly English sense of regal majesty. This is the composer of the brilliant tone poem, In the South, and the stately Pomp and Circumstance Marches. Yet, as this facade melts away, an intensely intimate inner world emerges in much of Elgar’s music. These moments are sometimes slightly unsettling, filled with haunting mystery, tenderness, nostalgia, and …

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Elgar’s “Chanson de Matin”: Sunshine and Flowers

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This week, we have explored music of the English composer Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934), from the blazing orchestral virtuosity of In the South, to the youthful charm of the Serenade for Strings. We’ll finish the week with a brief and breezy aubade—music which suggests the cheerful innocence of pastoral flowers catching the first light of dawn. Chanson de Matin (“Morning Song”) is the sunny companion to the more melancholy Chanson de Nuit. Published as Op. 15, No. 1 and …

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Elgar’s Serenade for Strings: Music of Youth

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Composed in March of 1892, the Serenade for Strings is one of the earliest works of Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934). It may have been a reworking of a previously written suite. It is the music of spring, filled with youthful vitality and charm. By definition, the title “serenade” suggests music played in the evening, outdoors amid the beauty and abundance of nature. As depicted in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, it also conjures up images …

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